Miffed at what he describes as Orange County's "political posturing," California Assembly Speaker Willie Brown said Monday that the chances of the county receiving state aid to resolve its financial crisis are "not great." Brown said that unless the county agrees to be placed under the supervision of a state trustee and raises the sales tax, there is little hope the state will lend a hand.

For years, Newport Beach's Shellmaker Island has suffered from an old industrial image, thanks to its past life as the home of a dredging company. But Tuesday, the state unveiled plans for a $5-million face lift that will include a 20,000-square-foot marine studies center.

When a city flexes its legislative muscle, forcing a property owner to sell land to the government, it's usually to make way for a school, road or other public construction project. Not so in this quaint, seaside community where city officials' greatest concern is the feverish residential development raging at its borders. Here, the City Council recently began using eminent domain--the government's authority to purchase land from unwilling sellers--to prevent anyone from ever building on it.

The California Board of Corrections has signed off on a $10-million grant for nearly a dozen Orange County programs aimed at curbing juvenile crime, the governor's office announced Thursday. The grant will help fund 11 local initiatives, including a new team of investigators that will gather intelligence on problem high school students in areas patrolled by the Sheriff's Department.

She is part runaway and part throwaway, and she needs a place to stay. But she is having trouble explaining to a counselor at the Casa Youth Shelter exactly why she feels she can't go home. There are so many reasons. One of them is her brother, who recently beat her with a baseball bat.

More than most other housing officials in Orange County, Bob Pusavat is credited by affordable housing advocates with making innovative use of scarce resources to attack the shortage of housing for low-income families. And he's done it without creating community ill will. Pusavat, the county's manager of housing and community development and redevelopment, has aggressively sought state and federal funds to build low-income housing.

Funding for the Academic Decathlon program in the Saddleback Valley Unified School District was eliminated by the district's trustees Tuesday night, a move that could force the state champion Laguna Hills High School Academic Decathlon team to disband. In a long and often emotional meeting attended by a crowd that spilled out of the board room, the board of trustees unanimously voted to cut all Academic Decathlon funding in the district as part of a $4.3-million budget-reduction plan.

An Orange County criminal database credited with helping police catch an alleged serial rapist earlier this year received $250,000 in state funds Tuesday. The money will help keep afloat Trackers--the Task Force Review Aimed at Catching Killers, Rapists and Sex Offenders--which has archived fingerprint and DNA evidence from thousands of old homicides and rapes throughout Orange County.

Necessity may be the mother of invention, but a windfall fosters creativity too: Three Orange County educational institutions allotted a total of $1.25 million in the new state budget already have imaginative plans to put the money to use. Santa Ana's planned Discovery Science Center, which received $750,000, intends to use the cash to finish construction. Dana Point's Orange County Marine Institute, awarded $475,000, wants to launch a major expansion.

The Board of Supervisors gave Assessor Bradley L. Jacobs a choice Tuesday--either apply for state money that could relieve a backlog of property tax assessment appeals or face a pay cut. In a 4-1 vote, the supervisors gave Jacobs until Feb. 24 to seek the $6.8 million he has repeatedly shunned, even though they would give him the extra staff he has said he needs to relieve the jam. If Jacobs refuses, the board could decide at its next meeting to cut his $100,000-a-year salary.

State lawmakers in Sacramento are set to vote today on a measure seeking $500,000 in state funds for an appraisal of the Riverside Freeway toll lanes in northeastern Orange County. The toll lanes, called the 91 Express Lanes, became mired in controversy late last year when the private company that operates them tried to sell, for about $220 million, the rights to run the money-losing lanes.

A state study to conduct genetic fingerprinting of the bacteria contaminating the San Juan Creek watershed in south Orange County won authorization Tuesday from the Orange County Board of Supervisors. The $100,000 study, which the state would pay for, would help scientists and environmental experts determine the threat posed to humans by pathogens near the mouth of the creek as it flows through San Juan Capistrano and onto Doheny State Beach.

Nine Orange County traffic safety projects ranging from a new blood alcohol test to a teen drunk-driving education program will receive an estimated $2.35 million in grants, a state agency announced Tuesday. Officials from the Office of Traffic Safety said the programs are among 188 statewide receiving a total of $31 million in mostly federal funds.

Disappointed Orange County transportation officials got only a fraction of the funding they requested in the $5.2-billion statewide plan Gov. Gray Davis is scheduled to unveil today--but the limited money they may receive will help pay for carpool lanes, freeway widening, expanded train service and new buses.

Try this for pressure: three hours to put together a wish list of transportation projects for Orange County. The reason for the rush? A Monday morning request from Caltrans for a list of priority needs--presumably prompted by Gov. Gray Davis' expressed desire to use some of the budget surplus to kick-start such projects. By noon Feb.

An Orange County criminal database credited with helping police catch an alleged serial rapist earlier this year received $250,000 in state funds Tuesday. The money will help keep afloat Trackers--the Task Force Review Aimed at Catching Killers, Rapists and Sex Offenders--which has archived fingerprint and DNA evidence from thousands of old homicides and rapes throughout Orange County.

The Board of Supervisors has approved a settlement ending an eight-month legal fight with Orange County's judges over court funding. Under the deal, county courts will get an additional $2.95 million in operating funds, a fraction of the $23 million the county's six presiding judges had sought. But many of the courthouse improvements will be funded with state money, the result of a law passed in September shifting some of the responsibility for court funding to the state.

Congressional and federal transportation officials presented the Orange County Transportation Authority with a $5-million check Monday to study a proposed light-rail system. Rep. Loretta Sanchez (D-Garden Grove) announced funding for the study with federal and local transportation officials, said Lee Godown, spokesman for the congresswoman. Sanchez and Rep. Ron Packard (R-Vista) lobbied their peers in Congress for the funding.

A watered-down version of a fire-ant eradication funding bill became law Monday, designating one-third less money than the $9.5 million first proposed to fight the dangerous pests that have invaded Orange and neighboring counties. Gov. Gray Davis said he stripped money from the bill before he signed it because "responsibility for eradication efforts must be borne primarily by the areas impacted, and funding for local treatment programs must reflect that responsibility."

Orange County Water District officials are urging the state to provide more resources to clean up oil spills and ban gasoline-powered watercraft on drinking-water reservoirs. The district's Board of Directors voted unanimously this week to approve an ambitious plan to ban the use of a gasoline additive called methyl tertiary butyl ether (MTBE) within two years. The additive gets into the drinking-water supply from watercraft using reservoirs.